Chaucer and Feminism
...icates that these approaches were a necessity; she has been afforded so few benefits that she must use her sexuality, the one great weapon that she has, to gain a dominance over her husbands. Since “[she is his wife, she has] the power during all [her] life over his own body, and not he” (157-159). In her prologue, the Wife of Bath shows more intensive desire. The reason why she fights her fifth husband is because of her anxiety about her age and his youth. Even though she dominates his youth, the wife could not be satisfied and would agonize him because of the anxiety from her fault, aging. Then in her tale, she tries to realize her desire, overcoming her aging and getting faithful young men who “[gives her] all the control in [her] hand” (813). The Wife of Bath is described in other composures to nearly every detail. She is not exquisite, beautiful, proper, or anyone’s servant. She makes no effort at hiding her sexual past, especially with men half her age; in fact, she talks about it at length. The Wife of Bath is making both a feminist stand and representing some of society’s views of women. She is not at all the traditional obedient woman. She pities all of her husbands, but also has the courage to tell them their rules were wrong in the first place. She also calls her husbands names like “sir old doddering fool” (235). The Wife of Bath is fully aware that she wears the pants in all of her marriages. The Wife of Bath also seems to fill a few traditional views of women. She is gossipy and she runs from her duties to tell her friends all of the stupid things her husbands have done. Even when her fifth husband hit her for her gossiping ---and she went deaf from it--- she still told all of her friends. This quality is often seen in the traditional housewife character of today’s sitcoms. She is subversive to her husbands; though she is dominant, she often does things behind their backs, and possibly gets herself into sticky situations. To help prove the thought of feminism, Chaucer’s “Wife of Bath’s Tale” can show that the author could be on the women’s side because all of his positive role models seem to be women. To support feminism, Alisoun’s tale can be very brilliant because it effectively condemns a Knight’s rape of a young woman by insisting that the Knight must submit to the authority of a woman by the end of the tale: “[The] knight deliberates and painfully signs…’My lady and my love, and wife so dear…I do not care which of the two, for as it pleases you, is enough for me’” (1228-1235). Feminism can be favored by how the knight is forced to let the old hag made the decision of whether she will be faithful and ugly, ...